Without Hands
by Serrafina
Summary: Kara Thrace had lived without hands once before, and she had sworn she would never do so again.


Without Hands

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.  
Spoilers: Through Rapture.  
Characters/Pairing: Kara, mentions of Kara/Lee and Kara/Sam.  
Warning: child abuse  
Summary: Kara Thrace had lived without hands once before, and she had sworn she would never do so again.  
AN1: Regarding canon--Maelstrom only told us about the breaks on one hand, but the Farm said that it was both hands, so...I'm just going with the explanation that at some point in time all of Kara's fingers were broken.  
AN2: Many thanks to tracyj23 for the beta!

* * *

Kara Thrace knew what it meant to live without hands.

When she pressed her gloved hands against flaming controls, she was too busy not dying to remember. And then she was stuck in a damaged Raptor on a dying planet with charcoal for hands, and the pain eclipsed everything—_everything_.

It wasn't until hours later, lying on a bed in sickbay, that the thrumming beat of _don't die don't die_ faded and she realized what this meant.

Kara Thrace had lived without hands once before, and she had sworn she would never do so again.

Doc had given her the good stuff, and she knew she'd be asleep soon, but for now she was left staring at two hands wrapped in impossibly thick gauze. She couldn't feel them. If she hadn't seen the ruined hands with her own eyes as Cottle cut away the charred gloves (just before her vision went white with the pain that even morpha couldn't block), she might have wondered if her arms faded out somewhere between her elbows and wrists the way her nervous system seemed to. She still wondered. Maybe there was nothing beneath those bandages.

She shook away the grim, pain- and drug-induced thoughts. She was there, she was alive, and godsdammit she'd fly again. Nothing else mattered.

* * *

_Her eyes opened in the darkness but she could see only a faint sliver of light through the crack between the door and the wall. _

_She couldn't open the door. Her fingers, swollen and throbbing, moved uselessly against the doorknob. She couldn't get out._

_She fell asleep slumped against the wall, waking an indeterminate amount of time later when her mother opened the door, sending her tumbling unceremoniously to the floor. She cradled her useless hands against her chest and tried not to cry._

_Part of her was glad to be out of the dark closet, but part of her longed for the solidity and relative safety of the door between herself and Socrata Thrace._

* * *

Kara woke with a start, eyes snapping open and blinking against the bright overhead lights. She held her body still with some effort. Sickbay, she was in sickbay, yes, that explained the dull throbbing in her hands. She looked at the white lumps resting atop the bed covers. So they were there after all.

"Kara."

She looked up. Her husband stood just inside her curtained-off square of sickbay.

She blinked, swallowed. "Hey Sammy."

He approached, sat down in the chair beside her bed. "How are you feeling, baby?"

She shrugged, pushed back against the pillows, stared at the ceiling. "When can I get out of here?"

"Doc says as soon as you're awake. I brought you some clothes."

She turned her head on the pillow and, for the first time, noticed the bundle in Sam's hands. He held it out to her, and she pushed up on her elbows into a sitting position. She reached for the clothes, but her bandaged hands pressed ineffectually against the cloth.

_Dammit_. She scowled, struggling to contain the humiliation and frustration. Her hands ached and what was the point in having the damn things if they were just going to sit there and be useless?

Sam set the clothes on the bed beside her hip and laid one hand on her forearm. He pulled the covers down, urging her to get up and promising he'd help her.

With a sigh, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, shivering a little as her bare legs were exposed to the cool air of the battlestar. She couldn't look at him as he helped her into her underwear and pants. Contrary to what other people might think, there was nothing remotely sexual in being dressed by her husband. Frakking embarrassing was what it was.

"Come on, Kara, lift up your arms," Sam said gently. His quiet coaxing only pissed her off more.

But she needed his help, so she lifted her arms, and he pulled the hospital gown off her, leaving her once again shivering and bare. She couldn't even wrap her arms around herself, couldn't save even the slightest scrap of dignity, as he pulled her bra over her head, guiding her arms through the straps.

He tried to talk to her while he was helping her into her bra and tank. He talked about the algae planet, about the firefight, about how he had wanted to go after her, and how Lee had stopped him.

His face darkened as he said Lee's name, and she was none too pleased at the reminder either.

"You know, sometimes I really don't see how you can even like him. Seems like he's more soldier than man."

Kara grimaced. "Sure, Sammy, Lee's a soldier, _more soldier than man_, and I'm, what, just your cheating wife who's sleeping with him?"

He stared at her wordlessly, her sweatshirt held in his hands like an offering, or a hostage. He reached for her, but even after dressing her he couldn't bring himself to touch her cheek. Instead, his hand hovered near her face, before drifting lower to settle on her forearm, just above the edge of the bandages. "I love you, Kara, even when you do these things."

Suddenly she couldn't breathe, couldn't stand his gaze, or the sound of his voice; and she _really_ couldn't stand his hand on her arm. "Get out," she said, teeth clenched so tight she was surprised the words could fit through.

He heard her though. His face tightened and he jerked back imperceptibly. "Kara—"

"No. Go. Leave me alone. I don't need your help. I don't need you."

* * *

_Kara sat on the hospital bed, her legs bent in front of her and a pad of paper on her knees. The nurse who had brought her the juicebox (and put the straw in the hole for her) gave her the paper and some crayons. She remembered that Kara liked drawing from her last visit._

_She gnawed on her lip as she tried to hold the red crayon between her splinted fingers. She couldn't manage more than a few random scrawls of color on the page, but she wished she could keep the crayons._

"_Kara."_

_She froze, losing her pitiful grip on the crayon. "Hi Momma."_

_Her mother stepped further into the room, and Kara saw that she was carrying a small bag. "The doctor says I can take you home now, as long as you're careful when you're playing."_

_Kara didn't say anything, just continued to look at her mother._

_Socrata Thrace walked to Kara's bed and opened the bag, pulling out some of Kara's clothes. "Come on, Kara, get dressed."_

_Kara eased herself off the bed on the opposite side, and just managed to lift her underwear off the bed. However, slipping it on proved far too complicated, and the clothing fell from her clumsy, nerveless fingers to the floor._

_Her face burned as her mother clucked disapprovingly behind her. _

"_Come now, baby, you know you can't use your hands just yet. Let Momma take care of you."_

_Her mother stepped around the bed and knelt down, gently guiding Kara's legs into her underwear and pants, then sliding them up her hips._

_Kara didn't want to look at her mother, but she felt pinned in place by her gaze. Her mother's hands moved over her shoulders, down her arms. Her touch was light, but Kara could feel the thick, rough calluses and she almost wished her mother would grip, squeeze, bruise._

_Kara concentrated on holding her body perfectly still as her mother touched her wrists, her hands, pausing at her splinted fingers._

"_Lift up your arms."_

_Kara didn't move._

_Her mother's grasp circled her wrists and she yanked Kara's arms above her head. She pulled the flimsy hospital gown over her daughter's head none-too-gently._

"_There now. Just do what Momma says."_

_Kara squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to tremble or squirm as her mother tugged her t-shirt over her head. It hurt when her mother shoved Kara's fingers through the sleeves, but Kara didn't make a sound. Then the shirt was in place and she carefully lowered her arms._

"_See, baby? That wasn't so bad." Socrata touched Kara's cheek gently, then moved her hand lower, gliding over Kara's shoulder and down one arm, lingering once again at the pulse point on her wrist, then encircling Kara's small palm. "I love you, Kara," she squeezed the tiniest bit, just enough to hurt, "even when you're bad."_

_Kara didn't cry._

* * *

Kara scooped up the sweatshirt from where Sam had tossed it on the chair. She tucked her arms, sweatshirt draped over one of them, into her body, curving protectively into herself. She took one moment...two, three, to orient herself, steady her breathing and get herself under control. Then she slipped out of the curtained-off room in sickbay and followed a nurse out of the hatch.

She stormed through the halls and ignored any crewmember ignorant enough to try to talk to her. She didn't want to talk, and she didn't want to think (certainly not about her hands, or Sammy, or why she'd snapped at him, or...). She just wanted to curl up in her bunk and sleep until she could fly again.

Then she remembered the dream she'd had in sickbay. Maybe sleep wasn't such a good idea.

She just wanted people to leave her alone, wanted to curl up in private and lick her wounds. Just as soon as she reached her destination, she realized she had a problem. The bunkroom hatch. It was the middle of the night shift, and no one was likely to be coming in or out.

She tried opening the hatch, even though logic dictated the need for fingers, grip, and functional hands. Nevertheless, she placed her bandaged hands on the wheel mechanism but she couldn't grip it, and her hands slid uselessly across the metal.

Frakking useless.

She tried to swallow the frustration, anger, shame, and startling fear as she realized just how pathetically helpless she was, trying to live without hands on a ship that required the damn things just to get from one room to another.

Never one to be stopped by probability, Kara threw her body weakly at the hatch, knowing already that she couldn't possibly strike it with enough force to open it. The frakking things were built to be impervious. Her face tightened and her mouth twisted and she almost felt like crying, but she slapped her palms against the hatch with enough power to feel it through the bandages. The sudden pain was enough to take her breath away and she curled forward as the agony shot up her arms.

* * *

That was how Lee found her: slumped against the bulkhead, gasping desperately for air and some semblance of control over her body.

"Kara," he said quietly.

It took her a few moments to react to his voice, and then he saw her breathing even out and she slowly straightened, took one step away from the hatch, her arms folded into herself. He looked up from her hands to meet her eyes, but her gaze flickered away, so he studied her face instead. Lips pressed tightly together, face reddened with pain and other things he couldn't name.

"What are you doing here, Lee? Shouldn't you be in your married quarters?"

For once, she didn't sound accusatory. Just tired. That didn't make Lee feel much better.

"I went to see you in sickbay, but you'd already gone, so I...I'm glad you're okay."

She looked at him then with such sadness that he wished she'd be angry, wished she'd hate him, just for a second, if it would take the sadness out of her eyes.

"You came to see me...at 0400?" Her tone made it clear that she saw through his act. "What, couldn't sleep? Just happened to be passing by?"

He almost said _I waited until Dee was asleep_ or _I waited until I could pretend it was just an early morning, and not a night that never ended_ but he couldn't. She'd just see through the lie anyway.

So instead he stepped towards her and eased one trembling hand against her cheek, her hair, the back of her neck, and then she was leaning into him and their foreheads were touching and he could feel her breath against his lips. It would have been so easy to let himself forget and just be there with her, but his hand slid down her tattooed arm and ghosted over the thick bandages and it was too late and she was too close and still too far away and it took all he had to pull away but he did. He stepped back and looked down at where his fingers still rested on her injured hand.

When he looked up, he saw the question in her eyes but he didn't know how to answer, so once again he said nothing. Then he saw her shoulders give a little shake, and his eyes found her discarded sweatshirt on the floor. He picked it up and held it out for her and she silently slipped one arm and then the other through the sleeves he held open. They didn't speak and he relished the feel of her arms and shoulders even through the layers of clothing.

She turned her face toward his, and he unconsciously took a step back. Her expression shifted just barely, and he couldn't read her.

"So, this is it now, huh?" Her voice was quiet, sad, unlike anything he could remember (although his brain never quite functioned properly where she was concerned).

"Yeah." The word rode out on his rough exhale, a breathy gasp all he was able to vocalize. And really, what else was there to say? Not _I want you to divorce Sam_ or _I scare myself when I'm with you _or _I love you_. There wasn't anything she didn't already know.

Kara turned her back to him, shoulders hunching slightly as she brought up one arm, scrubbing her face against the sleeve.

She just concentrated on breathing for a minute, on not breaking. Then she felt him moving, stepping past her...and then the familiar sounds of the hatch opening. Then he was walking away.

She didn't dare turn her head to see if he would look back.

Stepping through the open hatch, she wondered why his gentle aid and comfort hurt the most. Only Lee Adama could make an act of kindness into a goodbye.


End file.
